In the first part of the series, we would cover the following:
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What would we cover in our series?
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Advertising during Festive Season: Challenges & Opportunities
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Exploring the hidden gems: Finding out media that are comparatively less cluttered
Read all the article(s):
- Radio Advertising During The Festive Season (Part 2)
- In-App Advertising During The Festive Season (Part 3)
- Transit Advertising During The Festive Season (Part 4)
- Best Ad Platforms for On-Demand Home Improvement Services (Part 5)
- Top marketing ideas to promote your event (Part 6)
Advertising during Festive Season: Introduction
There are so many articles in the market regarding advertising during the festive season. Is there a need for a new one?
We know that advertising during festive season measures about 35-40% of total advertising spends on most businesses. The consumer demand is high and people are open to spending.
However, as a specialist of advertising for small and medium-sized businesses, the questions we have often faced are not that simple to be answered:
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Is it a good decision for a small business to advertise during the festive season when the market is saturated with big brands advertising aggressively?
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What should be the strategy followed by a small business to ensure maximum visibility and share of mind despite tight advertising budget?
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Are there any mediums that are yet unexplored and offer freedom from ad clutter during the festive season?
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What role can hyper-local advertising play during the festive season?
Like all the not-so-simple questions, the answers to these questions have no single line answers. The answers would rather depend on multiple factors like the brand category, brand awareness, competition, creative, platforms, etc. So, we sat down as a team, collated years of experience and came out with this series of articles that would cover these questions.
Advertising during Festive Season: Challenges & Opportunities
Challenge: Clutter in traditional media- TV, Print, Outdoor, Radio
During the festive season, the demand for advertising in TV, print, outdoor and radio grows manifold.
- Brands spend as much as 40% of their total annual advertising budget during the festive season.
- TV and Print alone cover as much as 66% of total advertising expenditure.
- Not only the festive advertisers, but the traditional media is also dominated by big e-commerce giants like Flipkart and Amazon who have aligned their shopping festivals like Big Billion Day and Great Indian Shopping Festival with the festive season.
The spikes in TV Ad Duration coincide with major festivals in India (Source: BARC Newsletter: Advertising During Festivals)
Majority of Festive advertising in newspapers happens during Aug-Dec (Sourcd: EY Report A Billion Screens of Opportunity)
- Indian festive season is mostly associated with big ticket purchase, gifting and celebrations hence the ad spots are mostly taken by the following categories:
- E-commerce
- FMCG
- Automobile
- Real Estate
- Jewelry
- Retailers
- Consumer Durable
- Smartphone Brands
Opportunity: the Rising significance of digital medium for research and shopping
- Despite the rising popularity of digital medium for advertising
- Thanks to the shopping festivals by e-commerce giants, Indians mostly plan their big-ticket purchases during the festive season and carry out research much before that both online and offline.
- Mobile’s where all action is happening: According to a Facebook report, about 41% of Diwali shoppers conduct their research on mobile while 77% of Diwali shoppers compare prices on mobile while shopping offline.
The top 5 shopping categories last Festive Season (Source: 2018 InMobi Festive Season Guide for Marketers)
Opportunity: Hyper-local Advertising: Increase your visibility where it’s the most effective
With about a 75% rise in “near me” searches in 2018 as compared to 2017, it is quite clear that shoppers prefer to visit offline stores in their vicinity. With increasing traffic and a rise in organized retail, a lot of buyers now rely on visiting nearby shops and malls for offline shopping. Also, with new modes of non-traditional advertising pouring in, hyper-local advertising has emerged as one of the most effective ways to advertise. Not only local businesses and outlets but big brands working on a hyper-local model like Dunzo, Swiggy, Urban Clap to trust in hyper-local advertising. We would be talking more about the significance of hyper-local advertising in later articles.
Best Time to advertise in Digital Advertising Medium
When we recommend a digital advertising medium for the festive season, the biggest question we face is:
Is sticking to one platform only sufficient for reaching out to the target audience?
- While there is no doubt about the impact that traditional media has on the audience, digital too is not far behind. In fact, the following survey results tell quite a different story.
- According to a survey carried by Retail Association of India, 65% purchase during the festive season happened online while online media emerged out to be the most influential advertising media
- According to a survey carried by the Retail Association of India, 65% of purchase during the festive season happened online while online media emerged out to be the most influential advertising media.
In fact, there are surveys that detail the exact time when people are online and are actively looking for information.
People start planning for festive shopping as early as August and continue till December ( Source: 2018 InMobi Festive Season Guide for Marketers)
Despite last quarter witnessing a slump in consumer spends from FMCG and automobile, two prime categories for festive season advertising, experts are expecting a 10-12% growth over last year’s spend to reach INR 20,000 crore. While the majority of ad spends would go into traditional media, digital would see significant growth.
In the next article, we will discuss the ideas mentioned in the article furthermore and explore whether there are strategies that can help small businesses stay ahead of the advertising clutter despite a tight budget.
Looking for ideas to advertise during the festive season? Write to us at Help@TheMediaAnt.com and keep watching this space for the next article.
